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I suspect for many readers of the New Testament that the Letter of James is something like the odd uncle at a family Christmas party who unfortunately suffers from chronic halitosis. Someone you rather not talk with, but in the end you are related—and thus might owe the obligatory yearly conversation. Well, if this does not accurately describe the church’s reception of James, it certainly represents the attitude of many scholars. For example, Andrew Chester notes “James presents a unique problem within the New Testament ...

Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California talk about ways to encourage participation in church life with those attending church.

Dear Dr Craig, I have recently moved on from Christianity to agnosticism, but I regularly check out your Q and A section as much of the content there is more sensible and thought provoking than the kind of thing I hear from a lot of Evangelicals ... Currently it seems to me that the idea of prayer is most sensibly explained as an addictive placebo that gives people a greater sense of control over their circumstances than they actually have. But just maybe there's something crucial I've missed, and if so I would be grateful if you could point out what that might be ...

Disfrutar de una relación íntima con el Dios del universo es el propósito principal del ser humano. En Dios encontramos respuesta y sentido a nuestras vidas. El salmo 15 describe al tipo de persona que puede relacionarse personalmente con el Creador. El salmista se pregunta quién puede ser un huésped de Dios. En esa cultura, un huésped gozaba de acceso directo con el anfitrión. Este salmo de sabiduría se entonaba al entrar al templo. Los adoradores iniciaban con la pregunta y el sacerdote respondía con los requisitos y finalizaba con una promesa para aquellos que los cumplían.

Michael Wilkins recommended these axioms to me. It has taken me several years to figure out and understand what they mean. They have worked like seeds for me. I’m sure he would elaborate on them differently (and better) than I’m doing here. But this is what I see in them ...

Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss the different ways to assess the health of a church.

"... I am now stuck in a nihilistic-atheistic world that I hate. Agnosticism is not even a coherent position to me, with regards to a Perfect Being, since I believe that the greatest conceivable being could give me knowledge of its existence, if it wanted to. Theism is a dream come true. The world would make sense, the existential mysteries that haunt me would be solved, life would be livable. It is atheism, however, which seems to be true, yet I do not want to live like this. I have become depressed to no end. I have been in a nihilistic rut for years now. I have become utterly recluse. Yet, even with all this, I cannot come to believe in God. What would YOU suggest I do? ..."

I am regularly vexed by how shallow my prayers can become. When I pray for something—and I know that all prayer is not for things—what should I pray for? Only for my family? For someone I know who is ill? For God to help me in the day ahead? For God to resolve whatever problem is currently worrying me? I often sense that there is some content that I’m missing when I’m praying. Do you sense the same thing? ...

This post is the substance of a chapel message I gave to the students of Kyiv Theological Seminary on October 14 of last year (2014). At the time Ukraine was (and still is) in the midst of brutal conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the eastern regions of the country. All of the students present had been impacted by the conflict, some profoundly either by burying church members, relatives, and friends, or by answering conscription summons. No one in the country has been left untouched by the crisis. I offer these thoughts here because suffering and crisis and loss may come to those around us at anytime. We need the mind of our Lord to enter into such a house of sorrow or pain and be his instruments for healing ...

We are moving in our culture toward a view of morality that renders moral values and virtues as no more than simply matters of opinion with no force or application beyond the individual who holds such a view. The contrasts sharply with the notion of morality from a Christian worldview that insists that moral assessments are not only objective but also matters of truth and knowledge. As we celebrated MLK day a couple weeks ago, we should be reminded that King himself held that the moral values on which the civil rights movement was based, were objective and knowable by the average person in the streets. He held that they were objective truths of morality, not subjective matters of individual preference ...

Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss the challenges and opportunities of bi-vocational ministry.

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. Recently I listened to your argument from the applicability of mathematics on premier Christian radio as well as the debate you had with Alex Rosenberg. I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to mathematics but I was intrigued by your comments on how the argument from the applicability of mathematics is similar to the argument from fine tuning ... Could it be that, as with the fine tuning argument, the applicability of mathematics might be explained by necessity? ...

A wise person builds his or her house on a solid and lasting foundation. According to Jesus, such a foundation is rooted in him and his teaching about life. The wise person, said Jesus, “hears these words of mine and puts them into practice” (Matthew 7:24). It’s a call to follow what Jesus says as our authority. Claims to authority grind in our cultural gears. But this is often based on confusions about what authority is and what it means to follow it. In this series we’re unraveling some of those confusions ...

In the last twenty years, many individuals claim to have visited heaven or hell and have written vivid accounts of what they purport to have seen. What should we make of these stories? Should they form a basis for our faith? Might they supplement or enhance the convictions that we already have? How do we evaluate such claims and what is their practical use even if true?

In the last twenty years, many individuals claim to have visited heaven or hell and have written vivid accounts of what they purport to have seen. What should we make of these stories? Should they form a basis for our faith? Might they supplement or enhance the convictions that we already have? How do we evaluate such claims and what is their practical use even if true?

Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss how their Talbot education impacts their ministry today in valuable ways.

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. Dr. Craig, I recently listened to your Podcast from the Defenders class on God's concurrence (Defenders 2, Doctrine of Creation: Part 8). At the outset, you explained that God is the cause of everything because he concurs in it. As an attorney, this made an abundant amount of sense to me. In the law (particularly in tort), an omission (or failure to act) can be the cause of something in the same way that an affirmative act can. Of course, we would only impose liability where the omission is accompanied by some legal duty to act, but that inquiry is wholly separate from the causation inquiry ...

Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss why a seminary education is so valuable for ministry today.

The Christian belief system is consistent and coherent. This shows in the way that adjustments in one concept of the system often require modifications in other aspects. Increased clarity about one topic elucidates other topics. The interdependence of my beliefs was again displayed when I came across a common mistranslation of a single word in Luke’s gospel. Once I had been persuaded that the prevailing translation was misleading, I experienced shifts in the ways I view and relate to God, and how I pray and think about God’s involvement in daily life. These implications of a single word have been strong reverberations that I am grateful to experience ...

Las noticias a nuestro alrededor pueden ser bastante desalentadoras. Por alguna razón las noticias que se publican y tienen promoción tienden a ser las negativas y las que reflejan algún conflicto social. Para los medios de comunicación y para la sociedad en general las buenas noticias parecieran no ser atractivas y solamente las negativas pueden salir de la sombra de lo cotidiano para llamar nuestra atención. Desgraciadamente, el estar rodeados de malas noticias origina un ambiente negativo en el que la vida pareciera una maraña de conflictos que crece cada vez más y a la que no se le encuentra solución por ningún lado. Si a esta situación le agregamos los actos de terrorismo de grupos radicales que se escudan en la religión para cometer atentados deleznables contra inocentes y las posturas tan radicales de políticos y grupos sociales que impiden una sana conversación para resolver sus diferencias, es fácil caer en la desesperanza y la impotencia.

Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss how local churches can better engage and love their communities.

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig: ... my question today refers to Lee Strobel book "The Case for a Creator". There was one part in the book where Strobel asked you "why does it have to be One Creator?" And you responded by saying "my opinion, Ockham's Razor would shave away any additional Creators." So my question today is in 3 questions: Define what is Ockham's Razor? How does this (scientific) principle or theory eliminate the need for extra gods? How does Ockham's Razor prove the existence of One God? ...

Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss the unique challenges of ministry in this region.

A few months ago I wrote about José Bowen’s seminar and his book, Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2012). I shared that his main thrust was for teachers to use technology to deliver content outside of class sessions, and shift the use of class time to processing that information, promoting critical thinking and the application of knowledge to real life situations. There are three ideas from Bowen’s work that I think have the potential of deepening the impact of our teaching in the church. Over the next few months I’ll be writing a brief blog on each of the three ideas, beginning with ways of using technology to get students into the content of the Bible lesson/study before you meet, preparing them for a more active and deeper learning experience together.

Newsweek decided to begin the New Year by attacking people who hold a high view of Scripture. (“The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin,” by Kurt Eichenwald, January 2-9 issue.) Their lead article on the Bible contains so many untrue or partially true assertions that it seemed to me that some sort of concise and readable response needed to be offered. But it would, literally, require a book-length critique to adequately address all the mischaracterizations, factual mistakes, and suggestive statements propounded in this single article. So I have decided to simply read through the article, select an occasional assertion from the article that needs a response, and try to offer a straightforward and hopefully fair response. None of these responses should be taken by a reader as sarcastic; my goal has been to offer sober-minded responses to particular assertions in an article that is full of inaccuracies.